Live from the HTC One event in New York City!
The time has finally come to see what the hullabaloo is all about — this year’s version of the HTC One is going to be announced here very soon, and we’ll be bringing all of the big news to you live from New York City! Stay tuned as we get this liveblog rolling just before 11AM ET.
Hey everyone! We’re seated in the front row of the HTC event!
The doors opened up pretty early this morning, so we’re well settled in and ready to go.
And I’m not alone. We’ve got a team of four Engadget editors here: Edgar Alvarez is taking care of the gorgeous pictures, while Chris Velazco and Terrence O’Brien are here to help out as well.
The event is in New York’s post office building. It’s quite spacious, and we have roughly 400 people here in attendance. That is, if I’m any good at estimating numbers; I was never very good at guessing how many jelly beans were in the jar. #trueconfessions
Feel free to follow the HTC livestream at: http://www.htc.com/us/go/launch/
Bonjour mes amis, it’s getting pretty packed in here and the typical ambient, trip-hoppy tunes are playing. Man, what is it with companies and this music?
And Brad is beatboxing now. He’s quite good, if you’ve never heard him before.
Meanwhile, an incognito HTC rep keeps asking people what else the company makes besides phones. One guy: “TVs?”
We’re in the home stretch now, folks. About three minutes to go until the real fun begins.
We haven’t heard any warnings or voiceovers yet, but we’re expecting this to start up soon.
Looks like we’re starting! Here’s CEO Peter Chou.
“Welcome everybody and welcome everyone watching online. Thank you for joining us today. I’m very excited to be here. I’ve been working at HTC for the last 17 years. Today we have something very exciting to show you.”
He’s talking about last year’s HTC One, which features breakthroughs in design and imaging.
“The HTC One was the best-selling phone in HTC history.”
“At HTC, we focus on great phones that make your life better.”
“Even today, almost an entire year after it launched, people are still saying the One is the best, most beautiful smartphone.”
The One was named the best smartphone at MWC, which we find funny since it is a year-old device.
It also received a gold design award from iF.
Ooh, Engadget got a shout-out! The One was Reader’s Choice for 2013.
“Our passion is to create a design that’s iconic and premium, that’s similar inside and out. A design the people will love and appreciate.”
No surprise, the new phone he’s announcing today will have authentic design and materials.
“We don’t do gimmicks. We want to give you an experience that is pure, beautiful, straightforward and an everyday great experience.”
Wathcing a video right now. Camera components flying all around the room.
It looks like we’re seeing all of the insides of the new One.
And it’s the HTC One M8!
All of those leaks we’ve seen? They’re true.
Peter’s now proudly showing off the M8 in cool poses.
Peter says the new M8 takes the old One and improves it in every way.
The curves make it feel so comfortable in the hand, he says.
“It’s durable. You can trust it. To achieve it, we used the most challenging material: metal.”
“Just like a premium watch or fine jewelry.”
He’s talking about his competitors using plastic because it’s so challenging to design a metal phone.
It uses a sensitive antenna embedded into the back of the device.
There’s a brand-new process to produce the gunmetal finish. “This is something we’re very proud of, because it’s very hard to do on a curved 3D surface like a phone.”
This is an example of obsessive attention to detail, Peter says.
It comes with the latest and greatest tech “that you’d expect from us.”
It’s not only powerful; it’s also very smart.
Duo Camera, Motion launch, Zoe, Extreme Power Saving mode,
5-inch full HD screen.
Also a Snapdragon 801 and microSD.
He’s talking about the Duo Camera. “We went the extra mile to do it the right way and the hard way. It’s an innovative part of our camera, so you don’t have to mess with separate apps that settle with software manipulation.”
We’re also getting a sneak peek of Sense 6.
HTC’s Assistant VP of Design Jonah Becker is now on stage.
“At HTC, we’re passionate about design. We design for exceptional people who think for themselves.”
“This is a phone that offers stunning design, tech that makes your life easier and another breakthrough camera.”
On the original One, 70 percent of the phone was metal.
Over 90 percent of the M8 is metal!
Gentler curves balance out the additional metal for more of a premium feel.
“We polished the metal to a stunning finish and provided the brushed metal texture. It’s a very tricky process and we failed many times before we got it right.”
He’s going to play a video about the phone’s design.
“It’s really interesting how we’ve had to take something that was quite good and think about how to take it to the next level.”
“The M8 is the epitome of design principles we’ve been working with for the last decade.”
“We wanted to keep the same spirit of the product and make it more refined, more subtle.”
“It’s impossible; what are you thinking? Let’s give it a try!”
All of the polycarbonate is gone from the sides, replaced by metal.
“When you hold it in your hand, you don’t feel any part of the phone anymore.”
“Nobody’s doing a product like this right now. There’s no comparison.”
“It’s unmistakably a One.”
Video’s done. Becker’s back. “At HTC our passion is not just great industrial design, but delivering a great experience. It will feature the sixth version of Sense.”
“Or, as we call it, the Sixth Sense.” Oh, HTC.
We’re facepalming internally right now.
Different colors and themes for different activities. You can personalize your own colors and themes as well.
BlinkFeed now has 1,000 content partners, 5.7 million active users.
There’s a new layout that’s more spacious and easier to read. You can also create custom feeds on any topic.
Say, remodeling your home.
“We’re opening up BlinkFeed to developers so they can integrate their content in ways that are interesting to you.”
The SDK is available today.
Sense TV is more powerful, with the inclusion of real-time social feeds and stats.
Now on to audio, with BoomSound.
Foursquare and Fitbit will be pushing content into BlinkFeed if you’re a user. In fact, the One itself can actually be used as a Fitbit tracker — more than a little reminiscent of Apple’s M7 and the slew of motion-tracking apps that appeared in its wake.
BoomSound is even better on the M8, with a finely tuned amplifier that reduces distortion and it has deeper speaker chambers.
Swipe up on the screen with three fingers and the media you’re using can be pushed to a home system.
“We worked hard to optimize battery performance.”
The battery is larger and 40 percent longer than before.
The M8 also has a power saver mode for regular use. “You’ll be surprised how long your battery lasts.” Shortly after launch, there will be an extreme power saver mode, which looks like it’s a simplified menu of options.
At 5 percent battery, this mode could get you 15 more hours.
“How many times a day do you push your power button to look at your phone? Our stats show over 100 times.”
You can now swipe different directions on the screen to wake it up and go to specific Sense services.
So if you pick up your phone and swipe to the right, it’ll take you into BlinkFeed.
Likewise, you can also press the volume button as you pick your phone up in landscape mode, which takes you into the camera.
Now we’re seeing the Dot View case that was leaked a couple weeks ago. You can see who is calling and answer the call without having to ever open the case.
Now we’re on to UltraPixel.
“WIth the M8, we’re taking our experience to the next level, and the results are fantastic.” Better-quality photos in all lighting situations. Faster focus time — 300ms, which is the same as the Galaxy S5.
You can manually configure your settings as well.
Also, you can save those manual settings as a preset for later use.
For video, there’s slow-mo, which lets you slow down the action in specific parts of the video.
Changes to the gallery timeline: There’s an image-match mode, which finds similar photos and matches them up, putting them into the same gallery together.
“People want a phone with a better front camera. The M8 delivers with a 5MP wide-angle front-facing camera.”
Hooray for selfies!
“2013 was the Year of the Selfie.” He may be right but… just ugh.
Now he’s diving into Duo Camera. The top camera is actually a depth sensor that opens up creative options that weren’t possible before.
It detects which objects are in the background, and which ones are in the foreground.
This lets you do things like change depth of field and add bokeh.
You don’t need a special mode to do this — the depth sensor allows you to do this with regular shots as well.
“For the first time, your phone can understand objects in physical space.” You can separate the foreground and background and apply different effects.
Pencil sketch, zoom blur, cartoon and colorize are the options available so far. Wouldn’t be surprised to see HTC do more.
Also, there will be an SDK for Duo Camera, so developers can come up with other cool things to do with it.
Now there’s a Zoe mode, so one button will do everything you need it to. Previously, it was on the viewfinder itself.
You can add your own music to the video highlight movies.
Zoe will be extended to the cloud as an online service, so you can upload your stuff for others to see. This also lets you collaborate with friends and family. The service will be coming this summer, he says.
BlinkFeed, Sense TV, Zoe and gallery will be separate APK files, so you can get updates to those specific Sense apps independently of a firmware update.
This is pretty much what Google has been doing the past year or so, and it’s a fantastic idea to ensure apps stay fresh.
When/where? Time to hear from Jason Mackenzie to find out.
Jason totally did a Galaxy S5 zinger!
“We’ve seen tremendous support from our carriers around the world. The M8 will be the single-largest rollout in HTC’s history. It’ll be available on 230 carriers around the world in over 100 countries. Before the end of April, you’ll be able to buy an M8 in Australia, Taiwan, the UK, Germany, France, China and here in the US.”
For existing HTC One/mini/max customers: You’ll receive Sense 6 later this spring as a firmware update.
HTC Advantage will let you stay updated with the latest version of Android and Sense for the next two years.
In the US, HTC offers broken-screen replacement on the M8 for the first six months. “This is commitment we don’t see on our competitors.”
Broad in-store availability across all major retailers and carriers in US and Canada within the first few weeks of April.
Most will have before April 10th.
Starting today at 1 PM ET, you’ll be able to go online at AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, Rogers, Bell and Telus and order one.
At 1 PM ET, you’ll be able to walk into a Verizon store and pick one up in person.
So the rumors about a Verizon retail exclusive were true.
Peter’s back on to do a photo opp with Jason.
Alright, looks like that’s the end! Check out our review of the M8 here: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/25/htc-one-2014-review/
Also, not mentioned in the event, HTC also announced that Google Play editions and Developer editions are available: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/25/htc-one-google-play-and-developer-edition/
Anyway, we’re going to head out, so thanks for tuning in and please check out the heaps of coverage already on the site!
Well that was fun!
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, HTC
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